For the past 25 years, surfboard riding and associated wave riding activities, e.g., knee-boarding, body or "Boogie" boarding, skim-boarding, surf-kayaking, inflatable riding, and body surfing (all hereinafter collectively referred to as wave-riding) have continued to grow in popularity along the world's surf endowed coastal shorelines. In concurrence, the 80's decade has witnessed phenomenal growth in the participatory family water recreation facility, i.e., the waterpark. Large pools with manufactured waves have been an integral component in such waterparks. Several classes of wavepools have successfully evolved. The most popular class is that which enables swimmers or inner-tube/inflatable mat riders to bob and float on the undulating swells generated by the wave apparatus. A few pools exist that provide large turbulent white-water bores that surge from deep to shallow pool end. Such pools enable wave-riding. However, white-water bore riding is not preferred by the cognoscenti of the wave-riding world, rather the forward smooth water face of a curling or tubing wave that runs parallel to the shoreline holds the ultimate appeal. Although numerous attempts have been made to establish wave-riding on curling waves as a viable activity in the commercial waterpark wavepool setting, such attempts have met with limited success. The reasons which underlie wave-riding's limited waterpark success is four-fold, 1) small spilling or unbroken waves which are ideal for the mass of novice waterpark attendees are not ideal for intermediate or advanced wave-riders; 2) the larger waves ideal for wave riding have proven prohibitive in cost to duplicate and become inherently more dangerous as their size increases; 3) the curling and plunging waves sought by advanced wave riders require steep and irregular pool bottom configurations that are inherently dangerous and can cause strong deep water current; 4) assuming a compromised and safer wave shape is acceptable to wave-riding participants, wave-riding is ideally a one-man-to-one-wave event that monopolizes an extended surface area. As a consequence of limited wave quality, excessive cost, potential liability, and large surface area to low rider capacity ratios, wavepools specifically designed for waveriders have proven unjustifiable to water park operators.
All wavepools that currently exist in the waterpark industry and the majority of previously disclosed wave-making inventions attempt to duplicate those types of oscillatory waves found naturally occurring at a beach. For purposes of definition, such waves are hereinafter termed "natural waves". Natural waves also include those found occurring in rivers as caused by submerged obstacles e.g., boulders. As known to those skilled in the art, natural waves have specific characteristics capable of mathematical description as a function of wave length, wave height, period, wave angle, velocity, phase speed, break speed, gravity, free surface water elevation, water depth, etc. Additionally, mathematical descriptions can be provided for a wide range of wave shapes progressing from an unbroken-to-breaking-to broken. Breaking waves, those of most interest to wave-riders, are traditionally classified as either spilling, plunging or surging. Broken waves can either be stationary (e.g., a river impacting on an obstacle creating a stationary hydraulic jump), or moving (e.g., an ocean white water surge or bore characterized by rapidly varied unsteady flow). The shape of a breaking wave is primarily a function of a given set of the aforementioned wave characteristics and the contour of the bottom over which the wave is moving. Beginning wave-riders prefer the smaller gentle spilling wave produced by a gradually sloped bottom surface. Advanced wave-riders prefer the larger plunging breakers that result from a steeply inclined beach. Since there are demographically a greater number of beginning wave-riders and since the wave favored by beginning riders is a product of an inherently safer gentle incline of beach, and since the energy and cost required to produce a small spilling wave is exponentially less that required to produce a large plunging wave, the current genre of wave pools have by necessity and practicality not been suitable for wave-riding by the more advanced wave rider.
The subject invention aims at creating a "wave shape" that can serve to provide those types of "wave shapes" desired by intermediate to advanced riders. Additionally, the subject invention seeks to accomplish such "wave shape" creation at a fraction of the cost and with an improved margin of safety as compared to that required to duplicate the aforementioned intermediate to advanced natural waves. The reason the subject invention can succeed at its goal is that it does not duplicate natural waves, rather, it creates "flow shapes" that are a result of high velocity sheet flow over a suitably shaped forming surface. This concept of sheet flow formation versus natural wave formation is one of two primary distinguishing factors between the subject invention and the prior art.
This second distinguishing factor focuses on the forces that "drive" a wave rider when he is riding a wave. To this end, the subject invention defines two distinct classes of flow shapes, i.e., deep water flow shapes and shallow water flow shapes. A deep water flow shape is where the water depth is sufficient such that boundary layer effects of the sheet flow over the forming surface does not influence the operation of rider or riding vehicle, e.g., surfboard. Deep water flow shapes can, assuming certain flow forming and flow characteristics (e.g., velocity) are met, duplicate naturally occurring waves. A shallow water flow shape is where the water is of such depth that the surface boundary layer effects of the sheet flow over the forming surface influences the operation of rider or riding vehicle, e.g., surfboard. As contemplated by the subject invention, shallow water flow shapes will never duplicate naturally occurring waves, because there are differing forces that come into play when a rider rides a shallow flow. As the result of those differing forces, the operational dynamics of the subject invention require that for shallow flows the average velocity of the water sheeting over the flow forming surface will always exceed the maximum velocity which would be found in a natural wave. To better explain why the shallow water flow velocity must always be greater than that of a deep water flow, and to further expand on the forces involved when a surfer rides an ocean wave or conversely when a "skimmer" rides a shallow water flow, the following examples are given: On a natural wave (a deep water flow environment) a surfer prior to starting a ride begins to move up the slope of the coming wave by primarily the forces of buoyancy. In order to overcome the forces of fluid drag, the surfer commences to paddle and take advantage of the interaction between the forces of buoyancy and gravity to provide a forward component to the surfboard and achieve riding speed. Thereafter, maintenance of a steady state position riding normal to the wave front is a balancing act between on the one hand, the hydrodynamic lift forces on the bottom of the surfboard coupled with buoyancy, and on the other hand, the forces of gravity and fluid drag. Cutting/trimming across the wave front (at an angle to the wave front) requires the same balancing act. If one attempts to reproduce the above described scenario in natural flow conditions, a large water depth is required. Likewise, in the laboratory setting this can be accomplished by deep water flows (reference the Killen papers, infra).
Conversely, in a shallow water flow environment, the forward force component of the "skimmer" and skimming device required to maintain a riding position and overcome fluid drag is due to the downslope component of the gravity force created by the constraint of the solid flow forming surface, balanced primarily by momentum transfer from the high velocity upward shooting flow. The "skimmer's" motion upslope (in excess of the kinetic energy of the "skimmer") consists of the force of the upward shooting flow exceeding the downslope component of gravity. In both deep water and shallow water flow environments, non-equilibrium riding maneuvers such as cross-slope motion and oscillating between different elevations are made possible by the interaction between the respective forces as described above and the use of the rider's kinetic energy.
The parent inventions to the subject applications have focused upon deepwater flow shapes specific to the performance of "surfing maneuvers". Surfing maneuvers, is defined by those skilled in the art, as those which occur under ocean like hydrodynamic conditions. Consequently, surfing maneuvers can be, performed in an artificial environment, e.g., a wavepool, assuming that the wave which is produced duplicates the ocean wave riding experience (deep water flow) as described above. By corollary, true surfing maneuvers cannot be performed in shallow flow environments since the hydrodynamic conditions are distinct. However, full scale tests have demonstrated that the physical look and feel of "surfing like maneuvers" performed in a shallow flow are surprisingly similar to "real" surfing maneuvers performed in a deep flow. For purposes of technical clarity, shallow flow "surfing type maneuvers" shall be termed as a subset of what hereafter can be described as "water skimming maneuvers". Water skimming maneuvers are defined as those activities which can be performed on shallow water flows including "surfing like maneuvers" as well as other activities or other types of maneuvers with differing types of vehicles e.g. inner-tubes, bodyboards, etc.
The subject invention discloses improvements to the prior art of shallow water flows, as well as similar improvements to the deep water flow shapes of the parent invention. The parent invention generated two types of stationary flow shapes, i.e., a stationary peeling tunnel flow shape for advanced waveriders, and a stationary non-breaking upwardly inclined flow shape for beginners.